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written under the influence… mostly…

Sitting in the claw-footed porcelain tub felt so unreal, ethereal even. The warm water clung to her skin, enveloping her like a big blanket while the bath fragrance; sweet and spicy tickled her nose with each breath. It filled her chest with a strong, relaxing aroma so much that it almost felt like a drug: it was perfect. That is, until the itch for a cigarette brought her back to the present and she emerged from the tub with rivulets of water running down her body, over swells and through crevices; eventually coming to pool in puddles left where her feet rested on the floor. Walking purposefully towards the bedroom trailing water, she ignored the thick, towels folded neatly on a delicate rack and didn’t even seem to notice the soft, fluffy bathrobes hanging off the back of the bathroom door. On the floor where she had left it earlier was her bag and she rummaged around in it until she found a half-filled pack of B&H’s; it wasn’t her preferred brand but it would have to do. She lit one before deciding to go back for the bathrobe.

Rolling her eyes at the lump huddled under the duvet, her lips curled in annoyance at the loud snores before she stepped through the large, sliding glass doors unto the balcony. The air was slightly warm and the breeze blew, cool and gentle against her skin. She was almost seven floors up and the lights of the city were breathtaking from up there. She sighed, taking a long, slow drag on her cigarette. Years back, during her secondary school days when she had been a “soldier for the Lord”, if someone had told her she would become an aristo girl; the scene might have turned ugly. She laughed a small laugh at the thought and flicked her cigarette. But here she was, putting up in some plush, high-class hotel, earning really good money and it showed too.

Everyone was selling pussy now: it was just everywhere, uggh she shook her head in annoyance. But she knew she was lucky with her clientele. They were loyal and they spent a pretty penny; why wouldn’t they, when they had their hands in the nation’s pocket? It wasn’t like she had to bend over backwards or perform some extreme acrobatic feat, she just had to make her many rich boyfriends feel good, feel loved and feel young. She hadn’t hoped to keep it up after school but getting a good job had just proved really hard for her. The jobs didn’t pay well enough and she’d be damned if she had to earn such meager amounts after spending a small fortune at a private university. She had to admit it was her job because honestly, it was what brought home the dough; she did have a boutique somewhere in some expensive shopping center but that was really just a front so when people asked her what she did for a living (because they just had to ask where all that money was coming from, really *eye roll*) she could say with feigned humility: “Oh, I own Sade’s Space at the Central City Mall. Do you know it?”

She felt bile rising in the back of her throat and ran for the bushes beside the house, heaving with such a force that weakened her so much she had to go down in a squat.
It’s just the malaria, she reassured herself wiping her mouth with the back of one hand, looking around for something with which to shovel sand over the offensive sight. She had been feeling down in the recent days passed and had gone out to the chemist to buy some drugs, which didn’t seem to be working if not making things worse.

A nagging thought in the back of her mind threatened a far worse scenario than just ‘malaria’ but she wouldn’t let the ugly thing so much as raise its head before she drowned it in the darkness beneath the surface of her conscious thoughts. But all day, it clawed and crawled its way back up, fighting against her will to shut it down; it whispered: taunting, beating upon the gates to her worries, begging them to burst open and torment her. Finally she made a decision: she had to find out, she had to be sure; she had to take the ultimate move to smack down that evil thing singing in her head once and for all.

It took her an hour to locate a chemist’s shop farther away from her house in another community entirely. They had a backroom, where they attended to certain “requests” of customers so she asked for the test to be done and after self-consciously handing them a cup with her urine in it, she waited; praying hard all the while as her heart hammered in her chest.
“Young lady” the man behind the counter beckoned to her, “go in and see the woman there, it is done”
There was a sudden silence in her head when the results were spoken and her feet grew cold. It seemed like time had stopped for a moment and she was floating through space; and then just as suddenly, she was pitched into fast forward, voices screaming in her head, her heart threatening to burst.
She was pregnant.
“Where is your husband?” the woman asked her half-smiling, “He must receive the news soon. I’m sure he will be very happy”
“m-m-my husband?” her tongue felt heavy in her mouth,
“Yes your husband” the other woman nodded at her still smiling.
“N-no” she could barely form the word, she was having a hard time putting her thoughts together, “I don’t want it… he doesn’t want it”
“What are you saying?”
“Please” her voice was barely a whisper, “Please I don’t want it. Help me take it out” she clutched at her stomach, nails digging in wishing she could rip the thing out of her right there.
“Ahn-ahn, why would you do that?” the woman’s smiled had turned right upside down as she stared over the top of her square-framed glasses, “Why? Don’t you know it is a sin? Do you know what that child can become tomorrow? What if he becomes the president tomorrow?”

She listened to the woman preach, listened as her words picked at her conscience; stirring up her guilt. And she almost gave in, almost let the thing growing in her be. But she couldn’t, she had too much to lose. She would have to forget about school, her family would surely kill her and if they didn’t she would suffer dearly in a bid to feed two mouths; she could hardly feed herself as it was. And then there was Richard; she didn’t know what his reaction would be but he wouldn’t be able to do much for her, he was still a student with at least a year left in school. She could not let the little monster live, it was a harbinger of suffering to come, of pain and lost dreams. She steeled herself before raising her gaze to the other woman still spitting and spewing her gospel.
“…what if your own mother had done…”
“Please, I don’t want it” she cut her off mid-sentence, “Please help me”
“Hmm okay” after a short pause, “If you say so. Well it is five thousand if you insist that by force you must do it” the smirk on the woman’s face indicated that the price was more of a punishment than the actual value of the help to be rendered. The woman wished to take advantage of her situation.Five thousand naira? To her, a simple village girl without a job or a father and a rather poor family, it was a lot for her to come up with on her own without stretching time and she didn’t want to have to wait another second.
“Please help me”
“If you don’t have the money…”
“Please I have some money but it’s not up to the amount you’re asking for”

Money exchanged hands after about an hour of pleading and the drugs were administered. She was asked to wait for three days and advised on the signs she should watch out for. But the three days went by and her anxiety grew by the hour. She gripped her stomach at times when the thoughts overwhelmed her, cursing and clawing at it in a bid to force the unwelcome visitor along on its way.
She thought to starve the life growing within her but her mother would beg her to eat, reminding her each time that she had to take her “medicine” and to refuse was to plant the seed of suspicion in the woman’s mind, “This malaria is serious ehn. Sorry, my daughter, you will be alright.”
The third day passed and nothing happened. She was keenly aware of each day that passed being another day that the thing lived and it worried her greatly. She tried some of the local remedies yet the thing clung to her, thriving on the life it leeched from her.

“You’re pregnant?” Richard stared at her in disbelief when she told him. She winced, leaning away from him dreading his response with eyes downcast and fidgety fingers. Nodding slowly to answer his question, she looked up at him but the smile on his face baffled her. Then he laughed. He actually laughed.
“What is funny?” she snapped,
“This is good news” he smiled.The bastard!!! Her heart sank low in her chest. This was working in his favor. He had never been in support of her wish to attend a higher institution and if she kept the baby, he would surely get his chance to trap her with the idea of marriage that he had been dangling before her and her family would be in full support, greedily accepting whatever they could make from her dowry. She did love him, but her desire to get proper certification at that moment in her life trumped her wish to be tied down with a family.
“I’m not keeping this thing” she announced flatly,
“Please don’t start cracking jokes” he reached for her, his hand sliding under her shirt as he kissed her neck.
Just like that he had chucked the issue aside like it was nothing, hadn’t bothered to discuss the details, he hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to keep it; he just expected her to do what he wanted: keep it. It wasn’t about love, it was about control and she had always been easy for him to control. Her love for him, her narrow-minded fascination with him and her naïveté made it so.
But she recoiled from the idea that this thing would come and turn her life upside down. She couldn’t do it, not even for him.
“I’m serious”
“Don’t you try it.” he didn’t even take a beat from what he was doing tugging at the hem of her shirt. He didn’t believe she would. It was so incredulous she almost laughed. He couldn’t be bothered to show any proper reaction to her statements because he didn’t think she would defy him.

She realized he wouldn’t help her monetarily with what she wanted to do and he wouldn’t stand by her in her decision either. He was a dead end; just another dead end and time was ticking. She could almost hear each second as it clicked away, could feel the thing growing in her, spreading out. She shuddered.
She reached out to two of her friends for help and they came over to her house. The walls were so thin she knew her mother’s sharp ears would surely catch anything she would say so she waited till they were outside; taking a stroll before breaking her news.
“It is a sin don’t you know?” Ene piped in immediately, “Hmm God is watching o. Why were you not careful?”
“Ahn Ene…” Maria, her other friend started out in protest.
“Hmm, I don’t want to be involved in this thing abeg” she sneered derisively, “I’m going. Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone; I know that is the next thing now” she bade them good bye and quickened her footsteps, putting distance between her and the other girls.
“Don’t mind her” Maria touched her arm, “Forming holy holy as if she no dey open nyash too. No worry, her time go come, devil go catch am. Nonsense”
“Wetin I go do na?” she looked forlornly at her,
“Don’t worry I go carry you go somewhere. Jus’ hol’ money, like say seven thasan’”
She didn’t have the money but she got it somehow.
Mary took her to a man with a rundown, tiny house out of which he ran his “clinic” which was really a chemist’s but had a back room for his other “business”. She wanted to run at the sight of the place but Mary had reassured her that she herself had had to come to the man once before and it was alright. After taking her money, he took her into a back room where he asked her to take off her skirt and her underwear and lay down with her knees apart. He slapped her legs open wider after giving her something to drink, his rough hands on her skin made her cringe and bite the inside of her cheek to keep from protesting.

When she felt the first stab of pain, she screamed.
“Shut up! Why you dey shout?” the man hissed coldly, “When you dey do, I dey there? Ehheen when e dey sweet you you no know say prevention dey better than cure. Abeg shut up your mouth”
She sobbed audibly humiliation washed over her, salty tears mingling with the sweat on her face.
“Lie down jeje o, all this cry wey you dey shake body, no do o make I no go tear something”
Stuffing her fist in her mouth, drenched in perspiration she let wave after wave of pain wash over her, she prayed and cursed in turn with each snip of his tools. She prayed for death, prayed for forgiveness and for relief. She cursed Richard, cursed her desire for carnal pleasures, and the evil seed that wished to shame her life by taking root in her womb. For three hours she laid there staring up at the dark ceiling but not really seeing anything.
“I don go hell fire come back today” she told Maria weakly when she met up with her in the front room where she had been asked to wait. Maria had to help her most of the way because she could barely walk. She was given additional drugs and more advice on what to do from the man.

She bled for days afterwards and she didn’t know what to do about it, didn’t know who to speak to but when she thought she would surely die, it stopped.
There had been a storm the night before and that morning the day broke calmly, the day she could breathe with ease. It was over.
She did pray for the little one, prayed for forgiveness, gave thanks for the “second chance” she was receiving to pursue her dreams; she had paid the price for this chance and she wouldn’t ever take it for granted.
She worried on how to break the news to Richard but albeit that, life returned to normal.
“Ahn, thank God my daughter. You are strong again” her mother beamed and she returned a fake smile.
It was weeks before Maria stopped by to see her again.
“How body?” she asked the other girl walking beside her,
“E dey for cloth” Maria joked, “Sheybi I tell you say devil go catch that girl?”
“Which girl?”
“So you don forget, sharp sharp like that? Na Ene na, yesterday she call me ask me wey I carry you that last time. I dey feel say she don carry her own belle”
She had been hurt when Ene turned her back on her that day and she had wished then that the other girl could have just a taste of what she had been passing through. Her mind flashed back to the cold table and the crude, callous hands on her most intimate place in that hot stuffy room. She winced reliving the horror of the pain, the woozy drugged feeling and the buckets of sweat leaking out of her and she knew deep down she could not wish that on anyone else. She had reached the gates of hell and returned, had stared into the eyes of death and he had stared right back.

It was a wonder how the car made it through the day. The engine had whined in protest all day and Ephraim dreading the moment it would dig in its heels and refuse to plough on anymore, had prayed silently all through. But it had made it and he sighed in relief, gingerly egging the commercial yellow and black taxi on homewards. It had been a long day and right then what he needed was a couple of shots and a bed.

He flexed his shoulders and yawned starting out on the Third Mainland Bridge, towards the mainland, putting his lights on full blast and stepping a little harder on the accelerator pedal. The bridge was pretty much empty. He figured it was due to the up-coming elections; it always seemed to put out some sort of fear in the air, turning the people paranoid and sending the scrambling home as soon as darkness began to creep into the sky. A result of all the stories: of the killings, ritual murders, violent outbursts.

His last customer had kept him later than he had thought was safe but he had swayed by the promise of a few extra thousands. It was nothing really; he was already home-bound; the rickety vehicle had gotten him through the day and it would surely get him home, by God it would. He turned up the volume of the radio a little more and bore down on the gas pedal. He sped on for a few meters before Ephraim heard the pop sound and the car coughed and spluttered, the steering jerked wildly in his hands….

ONLOOKER…

He undid his zipper hurriedly and hidden behind the official car he let the stream of urine hit the road at the side of the bridge, breathing in relief. He shook out the last few drops and redid his zipper before reaching in his pocket for a cigarette, holding the stick firmly between his lips he got into his car and lit it. He had to be on his way but his piss break had been badly needed.

He looked up just in time to see another car skidding dangerously to a stop in the opposite lane. His hand paused over the keys in the ignition, trying to decide if he should lend a helping hand or continue on his way. The driver got out of the front and took a quick look at the tires before, opening the boot of the car to retrieve a spare and some tools; working quickly. The man seemed to have everything under control, the officer decided, shrugging before he flicked the ash of his cigarette out the window.

As he watched the driver hunched over the burst tire, a nice sleek black Mercedes pulled up slowly behind the taxi and a well-built man got out. He was burly, dressed in a nice, traditional attire with his necks and arms adorned by beads. He had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and the officer could see his well muscled arms as he walked towards the other man to stand over him.

Alarm bells began to ring in his head, maybe the driver was about to get kidnapped. He saw something glint in the well-dressed man’s hand before his arm came down quickly and his shoulder jerked sharply.

“Jesus!!” the scream came out as a hoarse whisper as he saw a head roll. He froze at what he was seeing. The headless body spurting blood slumped to the ground as if in slow motion. His heart began to beat wildly and he trembled without control. He felt his seat grow warm beneath his buttocks but he could not process why or how there was wetness seeping through his trousers. He forgot to move, forgot to blink, his brain shut down and only his eyes retained function. The big man walked over to the head, raised it up and drank from it.

So hey guys! How ya dewwwing? It’s been a while hasn’t it? I know. I’ve been a tad lazy and all, but at the same time, I’ve really just been enjoying life. Before I move on with today’s post, let’s talk about Life for a minute. Time’s are getting harder and harder by the day. Everyone’s too busy trying to do one thing or another. It’s like no one has time to just chill and relax. It just reminds me of the famous poem by William Henry Davis

The intimidating full-length mirror sat on the wall across from her while she waited, daring her to look, drawing her in; mocking her. She could swear she even heard it laugh once, just her.
She had avoided looking at it, had tried to focus her eyes anywhere but on the face that was reflected back at her, feigning interest in the intricate designs carved into the frame of the mirror, wondering but knowing how the mirror hung on a nail. Inevitably her eyes caught the other woman’s in the mirror and she stared back at her own reflection, solemn and desolate.

She looked a lot older than her 23 years with sunken cheeks and dark circles around her eyes. She had begun to hate a lot of things now. She hated the way her collar bones jutted through her skin and the fragility of her wrists. She had been reasonably good-looking at some point with full lips and dark, long lashes that framed eyes which had since browned under full arched brows but she couldn’t see that anymore and she was pretty sure no one else could either.

Her dry, flaky skin and sallow complexion were in contrast to the fat, gurgling bundle she cuddled in her laps. To all it seemed like the baby had drained all the life in her, leaving her body an empty, shrunken shell hidden within old, faded, over sized clothes. She didn’t know how it was possible to hate and love something so much at the same time: her curse and her blessing; her burden, her sweet little gift from God. She had spared her life for the baby, to live in misery all the while praying for a miracle for them both.

“It was my first time away from home you know” she confided in Lola, the woman who had shown interest in her at the hospital and had invited her over to her house, “I didn’t know anyone here… I didn’t know anything either having been so kept away from the world most of my life”
Lola nodded at her, waiting for her to continue.
She hated the look of interest in Lola’s eyes, she hated that she had to tell her story, she hated her life, she hated herself.
“I was meant to be in school, making myself a better person so I could help my parents back home… But I never even got as far as paying my fees. I had the money, I had it” her eyes glazed over as her fingers twitched involuntarily, she could almost feel the money as it had been at the start of her troubles. “…Then there was Tony”

Her naivete had been painted all over her when she had first gotten to the town and had drawn Tony to her like a shark to fresh blood. At first she had studied him and concluded that he was good enough. But she didn’t know the rules of the game, didn’t know how it was played so she missed all the clues and signs.
“I fell for him” she shrugged, “He assured me he would take care of me. He would help me sort out my school and we would be happy…I don’t know but everything he said was just convincing and i wanted that life he talked about’
He had gotten her a two-bedroom apartment and then moved in; “To save cost on rent” he said.

He had told her he would go to the bank to pay her fees for her, taken the money and returned with a bloody bandage and a black eye. When she had asked what would be done about her fees, he had replied with: “Are you so wicked? Can’t you see what has happened to me? I’m in pain! I almost died! What is the problem with you?” She had kept her mouth shut to avoid upsetting him at the time, believing he would bring up a solution after he got over his injuries. But that had been the last she had heard of the money for her fees.

Then came the black eyes and the bruises. “I’m so sorry” he begged, crying the first time, “It was all that alcohol I had to drink, I’ll stop drinking for you, baby. I’ll stop I promise.” The way the bruises criss crossed on her skin after that, she began to look like a human-tiger so she avoided the mirrors when she was naked. The drinking never stopped.

“We’ve run some tests” a pretty, young doctor had said to her on a sick visit to the hospital, observing her over the rims of her moon-shaped glasses, “I’m afraid you have contacted an STD, you have gonorrhea. I’ll prescribe you something to take care of that. In the mean time you need to abstain from sex to avoid infecting others as well as allowing the treatment to work for you… and ask you partner or partners to come in for testing and treatments too”
Shocked and angry she had gotten home and charged at him, “Lying, cheating bastard!” She had lost a tooth that night, gotten bite marks for the first time. She had dropped unconscious and woken up to him splashing water on her face. He would not agree to her refusal to have sex and would use cheap, weak condoms as his form of ‘defense’. She couldn’t tell Lola that part.

“I wanted to leave” she sobbed, “I really did. But I had no money, no real friends and most of all I just wanted to believe that things could and would be better like he assured me”
“What about your family? Why don’t you just go home?”
“I have been lying to them for two years now” she said after a pause, “That I am in school and that I have a good part-time job too that pays my bills, just to put their minds at ease. They aren’t rich by any standards, barely struggling… and my heart wouldn’t forgive me if I asked them for money knowing I’m not really in school”

She looked down at the faded clothes that clad Abigail; who was napping in her laps with her fingers in her mouth and an overwhelming wave of pity for the young one crashed over her, “By the time I made up my mind to actually leave, I found out I was pregnant and I guess that sealed my fate. I was stuck. Things only went downhill from there. The landlord asked us to move out because apparently Tony had not paid the rent in full so we moved into a single room without a bathroom or a kitchen to ourselves. Then, I eventually found out what he really does for a living”

She shook her head and laughed bitterly, “All the while I was under the impression he did something big, he would never tell me what so I figured it might have been illegal but even at that I accepted it. In the end, he’s really just a security guard at the federal university here; not even a top officer, a mere underling. He would beat on me when he was frustrated, pull out a little change when i asked for money for food then he started staying away from home weeks at a time. So I went to his work to search for him and he wasn’t even there. I learnt of his lackadaisical attitude at work and the several threats he had previously received to get laid-off” she remember how the other officers had spoken rudely to her and it boiled her blood, “They did help me find him though, in one of the abandoned houses in the residential area provided for the lecturers; he was with another woman. All the while i was pregnant”

The look on Lola’s face made it hard to continue, it was a mix of disbelief and pity, with a bit of horror thrown in too. How could she have let all that happen to her?
“They made him go home with me but it didn’t stay. He was out again as soon as he stepped in the door”
Lola made a clucking sound. She obviously knew where.
“When I had Abby here, I decided to tell my mother about everything… But as soon as I picked up the phone, it was just some more bad news so I didn’t. My father has passed away… I couldn’t kill my mother too with my disappointing news. Her corpse would rot above ground because I won’t be able to go home to bury her”

“But you have to find a way. This child will not survive this life you are living right now” Lola advised. “You must return home, because you cant help yourself and no one else can help you as far as you need”

“Maybe i could get some work, save up” it was a hint she expected the other woman to pick up on.

“I cant get you a job, but i can help you as much as is in my power for the sake of the child”

There was a long pause before Lola finally spoke again “So what will you do now?”

But, with us there is another; barely but a shadow, like the smoke from dying embers.
The child does not speak; I suppose she has not the skill to, with big round saucers for eyes through which she watches the world, fascinated.

I do not know her meaning.

“She is weakness,” the shadow says, “for she is innate innocence.”

I do not deny that I notice her inexperience and naivete; her approach to life so open and unassuming that she comes across as downright gullible. She believes in the non-existent goodness of mankind with a faith so strong she almost seems blind to the truth that is right before her eyes but alas you cannot believe in something that isn’t real.

The shadow asks that we keep her in a box and I cannot object… I do not object you see, because when her heart breaks we all die a little. We hurt so bad, crying out: voices united in gut-wrenching agony as her pain wracks through each one of us, radiating with such a strength that leaves a numbness after it lets go…
That was years ago…

Now I can see her, the light filtering in through slits in the box casts obscure shadows in the dark interior.
Dark shadows ring her eyes once filled with imaginations of happiness and love; now dark eerily beautiful soulless pits of misery and hopelessness…betrayal. She hardly takes notice of the tear in her dress or the stringy look of her hair or the grimy streaks down her sunken face as she sits in a corner of the box, trying ever so hard to stitch our battered heart back together but the pieces… the pieces are missing here and there.

When he turned away from locking his car he had briefly locked eyes with the other man. It had been barely for a second but it was enough. The gateman’s face ran through a mix of emotions: recognition, surprise, disbelief before finally settling into a lewd, secret smile. He had anticipated it in the scheme of things and in return, quickly dipped his head before heading into the big house after his host.

Drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa in Shola’s lavishly furnished living room with his other hand wrapped around a drink she had poured him from the bar, he waited for her return from her bedroom upstairs. Between admiring the all too familiar decor and wondering what sort of stupid playlist she had put on the stereo, he replayed the evening in his head.

Since he had offered her a ride a week before when her car had conveniently broken down, all their texts, phone calls and instant messaging had led to the dinner that they had just had. They had been out to a place he knew she hadn’t been before and just to be sure, he had asked her.It had been a slow night for the restaurant, weekdays usually were.

She had of course made sure to order something very expensive off the menu that she couldn’t even pronounce but he didn’t mind. He had reveled in the sensation that came from her feet repeatedly brushing against his leg, languidly tracing circles under the table and the sultry way her eyes undressed him all through the meal, the way she leaned over when she spoke coupled with her low cut dress had caused a dull, pleasurable ache in the front of his expensive, tailored trousers. Afterwards, they had come back to her place, on her insistence, for a late drink. He smiled, such a lame cover-story.

None of that had really been necessary for him: not dinner, not the constant back and forth with the flirty messages or the weak excuse she had invented just to get him in her house; he had already marked her down as his since he’d first laid eyes on her. He could have had her whenever he wanted and he knew it. But it was the excitement borne by this toying around and seductive play that kept him. It was exhilarating playing a game that he had already won, everything he did became a part of some sort of ceremony in preparation for the inevitable. Heck,even the meal had had some sort of significance. It was like the ritual of a predator stalking its prey; certain protocols had to be observed, certain roles had to be played out. It was the thrill of the hunt.

He glanced at his watch impatiently and suddenly stopped drumming his fingers. Maybe it was thinking about the way she made it so obvious that she wanted to fuck him, practically spreading her legs for him at every chance she could or it was having to remember the disgusting way the gateman had smiled at him; irritating little notion like they shared some sort of bond. Or it was possibly because he had reached his breaking point with the stupid music on the stereo which was slowly killing him inside, grating on his mind, fucking with his thoughts.

But something in his mind snapped and he couldn’t wait any longer.

He took the stairs slowly to the first floor of the house with his hand gliding effortlessly over the smooth, polished wood of the banister as he went, his heels clicking oddly on the tiles. He found the intricately carved, heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor as on all his previous visits, but this time he wasn’t so careful when he threw the door open without a knock.

Shola who was standing in the middle of the room jumped in surprise to face him, clad in nothing but a black thong. She recollected herself quickly and wordlessly raised an eyebrow at him, smiling provocatively. A ripple ran through him at the sight of her perfect body: tiny waist, toned thighs, turgid nipples, smooth skin. She edged slowly towards the bed; her dark lustful eyes propelling him across the room to her.

She undid the buckle on his belt, all the while squeezing and stroking him through his trousers. The low, dull hum of his zipper being pulled down brought his attention back to her. He watched her take short breaths and lick her lips while her hands worked eagerly at freeing him.

“You’ll need to take a sit for this” she winked turning him to sit on the bed while she got on her knees between his legs. He jerked slightly at first when he felt the light pressure of her tongue and let out a sigh when the warmth and moisture of her mouth enveloped him. He closed his eyes and took to running his hands through her hair when the pleasure was almost unbearable. He bit his lip and moved his pelvis in rhythm with her mouth. Then she stopped abruptly.

His eyes flew open angrily and he grabbed the back of her hair..

“Who asked you to stop?”

But her mistake was trying to reply because as soon as she opened her mouth to speak he rammed his penis into it. With her head firmly gripped in his hands, the choking sounds she made as he roughly pushed himself deeper into her throat gave him just as much pleasure as her tears as she tried to pull away from him.

His hands moved from being buried deep in her hair to encircling her throat in a tight grip, and she began to claw desperately as his thumbs dug in.

“What’s the matter?” he asked in a soft whisper, “You don’t like it rough?” his voice was so low it was almost a hiss. She was finding it hard to speak with her mouth full “I know you like this; I’ve seen your toys.” There was something satisfying in the way her arms flailed about while her eyes bulged; a vein throbbed beautifully in the middle of her forehead. He held another human’s life in his hands and felt like a god. The power was ecstatic.

It was an aphrodisiac.

It was arousing.

It was mind-shattering.

And then he came, buried deep in her throat, shaking from the force of his orgasm..

He got to his feet and left her coughing and spluttering in a ball on the floor beside the bed.

***

It was a relief to be able to breathe again and Shola sucked in the precious oxygen. Sweet Jesus!.

Which kyn rough play be all this one now?

Her throat was on fire and every breath she took burned like a motherfucker.

Fucking werey!

She fought the stiffness in her muscles and raised herself to a sitting position, leaning against the bed watching Ahmed walk across her room to her dresser and wondering what sort of crazy person he was. She was used to fetishes, some a bit daring but this was something else, and worst of all he hadn’t even warned her.

A cold, dank feeling of dread clutched at her heart as she watched him pull out the last drawer in the bottom of her dresser; the one where she kept her sexual propaganda. Her cause of discomfort wasn’t because he had opened it; it was the unfaltering way that he casually reached for it, slipped his hand inside knowingly, like he knew exactly what would be there. The realization hit her low and hard: this man had somehow been inside her house unnoticed; there was no other plausible explanation. And there was only one way that could have happened.

Hai! Okon you have killed me!

He turned to her slowly with dark, unreadable eyes; her silver handcuffs dangling off the end of his fingers. The ones she had specifically gotten because Nasir was fascinated with kinky stuff like that. ‘
“Sssshhh” he was closing the distance between them with slow, calculated strides, stroking the handcuffs tenderly.

What trouble is this my God?

She opened her mouth to scream and the last thing she remembered was a heavy fist crashing into the side of her head.

*************************************************************

When Nasir showed up at Shola’s house that morning because she hadn’t picked any of his calls or replied his, he had thought it was a good idea. He figured he would play the part of being annoyed at her for ignoring him and she would give him “apology” sex. And that was just how he had planned to start his day.

He parked outside and made to knock on the side gate but it was unlocked and swung open slightly on impact.

That useless gatekeeper he cussed in his head, stepping in through the gate and heading straight for the main house. Finding the front door unlocked he made his way into the house. With every step he took up the stairs, the bulge in the front of his trousers seemed to grow, throbbing impatiently against his leg in anticipation.

“Shola?” he knocked on the door to her bedroom twice before slowly pushing it open.

Shola was sitting up in bed, completely naked with her hands held up loosely over her head by a glint of silver at the wrists. But there was no head, just the stump of a neck. It took him a second to realize that the shaggy mass of hair between her widely parted legs was her head, face down in her vagina.

He didn’t realize he was the one screaming until he couldn’t breathe, so he ran. Stumbling down a few of the stairs, he seemed to regain his composure as soon as he was out the front door. He glanced into the gate house wondering where the gateman could possibly have disappeared to at such a time and he froze.

Okon was sitting on the floor with his head flopped unto his chest, propped up by the iron frame of his tiny bed. His abdomen had been slashed open and his innards had been neatly arranged on the floor beside him. This time, Nasir scream wasn’t at fast as the contents of his stomach and the doubled over beside the gate house, heaving.